“I did?” The marshal seemed taken aback by that. He sat up in his creaking swivel chair and blinked once. Then comprehension dawned and he made a rueful face. That lasted only an instant before he smiled. “Could be you’re right. Could be I do need a drink. Or something.” He reached into a stack of paperwork and rooted through the sheets and folders until he found the one he wanted. “There’s a writ of habeas corpus here that needs serving, Longarm.”
“Service of a writ, Billy? Damn, can’t you find something more interesting for me to do than that?” Longarm detested simple, boring, routine matters like this. He much preferred to be out digging and scraping and tending to real criminals than playing hey-boy for the courts and the fancy-pants judges.
“As a matter of fact, Longarm, I probably could. But in this particular matter, you were asked for by name.”
“Why me?”
“Now that’s an age-old complaint, isn’t it,” Billy mused. “The eternal question, Custis. Why me? I ask it myself sometimes. Of course, it isn’t all that often any of us gets an answer to it.” The marshal smiled. “This time you happen to be in luck. I actually know the answer to it.”
Billy was obviously in something of a mood today. Longarm went over to the cabinet where the marshal kept a little something for the oiling of troubled waters. He poured a brandy for Billy and a rye whiskey for himself while the marshal nattered on.
“You remember a case a while back where you were in close, um, contact with the Ute Indian tribe?”
“Not quite th’ whole tribe,” Longarm answered. When it came to close, well, there was one Ute in particular he’d gotten close to. Pretty little thing she’d been too.
“You know what I mean.”
“I might could,” Longarm agreed.
“For some reason the Utes liked you. And apparently trust you. That’s why you are being asked to serve this writ.”
“I see,” Longarm said. “More or less. Is begging gonna get me outta this?”
“Nope, no chance.”
“Then I expect you better tell me ’bout it.”
“All right. The Utes asked for you, like 1 said. That request was passed along through their attorney.”
Longarm’s eyebrows shot up. An attorney representing the Ute nation? Now wasn’t that a strange kettle o’ fish. Generally these cases involved some bunch of greedy whites filing papers to hustle Indians out of their way, not the Indians filing papers themselves.
“Was there something you wanted, Longarm?”
“No, you go ahead, Billy. I’ll cough an’ marvel when you’re done.”
“Thank you. As I was saying, the Utes requested your participation in particular. That was passed along by the attorney representing their interests. A brief was filed with
Judge John McFee, and he... Longarm, you look like you’re ready to bust. Is there something you want to ask me?”
“It’s just... who the hell is this McFee? I sure thought I knew every judge in this district. And I never heard of no McFee.”
“McFee is federal. He sits in Nebraska.”
‘There ain’t no Utes in Nebraska, Billy. Not unless I’ve got awful forgetful all o’ a sudden.”
‘There may not be Ute Indians there, Longarm, but there are federal courts in Nebraska. Including Judge McFee’s. I might point out that there is also precedent there. Newly made case law that originated in Omaha. And that is what we are dealing with here. Are you familiar with Standing Bear versus Crook?” .
“Mmm, I can’t say as that turned up on my reading list yet. But I’m sure I’ll get to it real soon.”
‘The case was in Judge Elmer Dundy’s court recently. Judge Dundy came up with a habeas corpus ruling that says Indians are entitled to the same privileges and protections as anyone else—the same obligations of compliance with the law too, of course—if they choose to live off their assigned reservation lands.”
“Now ain’t that an unusual notion,” Longarm said dryly. “Perhaps. The point is, Dundy’s ruling means that Indians who are causing no harm have the right to leave their reservations if they wish and conduct themselves as any citizen might.”
' “Causing no harm,” Longarm repeated. He took a drag on his cheroot and stared toward the ceiling while he slowly expelled the smoke. “An’ who is it, Billy, who decides if these here Indians are causing harm or not?”
Vail gave him a tight-lipped smile. “That is what cuts to the heart of it, Longarm. As long as any Indian anywhere in this country wants to go to war with us whites, most whites are going to assume that any Indian off any reservation is out for scalps and glory. The interpretation of intent is where things get complicated.”
“Sounds t’ me like there’s a disagreement over the intention o’ some Utes,” Longarm guessed.
“In a nutshell, yes. A small group of Utes have been detained by lawful authority in a town called Snowshoe. I gather there is one faction in town that wants those and any other Utes in that part of the country rounded up and shipped back onto their reservation lands. Others, 1 understand, think the problem would be best served by hanging the ones in custody and shooting all the ones who aren’t.”
Longarm grunted.
“We come into it because some lawyer named Ab Able is sharper than you are when it comes to case law. Able filed a request for the habeas corpus writ before Judge McFee, citing the Dundy precedent in support of the petition. The writ was granted. And you’ve been asked to serve it.” “Filed it in Nebraska, not here.”
“For obvious reasons,” Billy said.
Longarm nodded. He understood those reasons quite as well as Marshal Vail did. Snowshoe was a mining camp in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado, not terribly far from the Ute reservation. Logically any relevant petitions would have been filed with a federal court in Denver, closest to the scene, so to speak. But it hadn’t been very long ago when the Ute nation had rebelled against their agent. There had been a massacre of whites at the agency headquarters at the time. Other whites unlucky enough to be there on the wrong day had been beaten, and several women raped but not killed. Before it was all over troops had had to be rushed in, and a pitched battle had been fought. The army had won the fight, but there’d been casualties on both sides of the conflict. Feelings still ran high about that in Colorado, and trigger fingers were still somewhat shaky. Any judge in Colorado would’ve known about that. And if the guy was worried about his own political future, he might’ve been plenty reluctant to follow Judge Dundy’s example from Nebraska and allow a habeas corpus release for the Utes regardless of guilt or innocence.
“Lawyer Able ain’t stupid,” Longarm observed.
“No, he isn’t.”
“So now I go down t’ Snowshoe and spring these Utes outta the local calaboose, is that it?”
“That would seem to be it, yes.”
Longarm grinned. “Lawyer Able might be smart. But he sure ain’t shy about making me the most unpopular son of a bitch in Snowshoe, Colorado, is he?”
“If it makes you feel any better, Longarm, you can cling to this thought. It’s only the whites who might want to shoot you in the back. The Utes will still think you’re a swell fellow.”
“Yeah, that does make me feel a whole heap better, Billy. Thanks for the encouragement.” He grinned and tossed off the rye that he hadn’t gotten around to tasting yet.
“Giving aid and comfort to my deputies is what I’m here for, Longarm,” Billy said dryly.